Passegiatta Pt. 06

"Jesus, kid, just give her a little respect," Goodwin said quietly. "She's had a pretty rough night herself."

She heard him, but if the kid had he didn't let on. Goodwin saw her turn and look at him, and he could just make out the smile on her face. He walked over to her.

"You speak any English?" he asked.

"Yes, I do." She spoke with an English accent, which struck him as pretty funny until he realized that's probably how she learned the language.

"We need to get out of here, and fast. This kid says they killed some Germans on the beach, and we don't want to be anywhere around here when the goons find out or we'll be up Shit Creek creek without a paddle."

"Sorry? Where is this Shit Creek? I do not know this place. But you . . . do?"

"Yes, Ma'am, I'm well acquainted with the place. It's just right down there, right by those dead krauts. And we need to get away from here, pronto, 'cause we don't want to be here when those bodies are found!"

"Oh, si, pronto! I understand. Yes, we go fast."

The kid came up and gave the girl her shoes. She held onto Goodwin's shoulder while she slipped them on, and this, Goodwin saw, infuriated the wet kid further.

"Come," she said to Goodwin, "we go now." She turned and rattled off a stream of instructions to the men and they fell in behind her. Goodwin fell in behind them all, bringing up the rear. He turned once as they made their way into the trees and the safety of shadow, he turned and looked at the rocky waters off the cape.

Yes, they were still there . . . just offshore . . . watching, and waiting . . .

__________________________________

He came to know her as Maria Theresa. Just that, and only so.

She was beautiful, so beautiful that some days it hurt, really hurt to simply look at her. Goodwin felt himself falling in love with her from the very first moment he had seen her in that first morning's light. Her auburn hair drifting among graying leaves of sleeping chestnut trees as she slept on the ground that morning . . . her willowy legs as she climbed silently, fearlessly into the rocks, ahead of them all . . . leading them into the hills . . .

She took them through deepest wood to a small farm. These people were good, she said, she had cared for their children once when she was still in school, and they would help. And these people had indeed been good, they helped Goodwin and Vico and Trini . . . and Maria Theresa every way they could. They shared what food they had, helped them move off into the woods and build shelters among the rocky cliffs that overlooked the sea. They helped keep the small group fed, and when others from the village began winding their way up into the hills, these simple friends vetted them and put them in contact with Maria's Group if not found wanting.

And that, after just a short while, was how the group became to be known: Maria's Group. Vico and Trini and Paul Goodwin followed her everywhere, protected her, and soon followed her orders. They scouted groups of Germans who still often vacationed in Portofino, still came for the sun and the sea despite the American invasion that was marching relentlessly up the shinbone of the Italian boot, and when a particularly high-ranking officer visited they slipped through the night silently and took his life. They drifted like shadows in the night and spiked guns, filled petrol storage tanks with sugar and honey, started small landslides that denied German trucks access to the more remote areas around the villages and farms on the peninsula, and they cut communications lines and power lines and the throats of more than a few officers who ventured from the safety of numbers for a final walk in solitude.

She had been raped that night, Goodwin learned later. That night of fierce unions.

Two men, two Germans had come upon her walking home from the clinic where she worked, and they took her right there in an alley off the Via Roma. Not roughly, not savagely, just two drunk kids far from home and full of themselves, full of the power and fear their uniforms conveyed upon the helpless and the ignorant, they took her into the shadows and ripped her nurses uniform from her body. They were clumsy lovers, not rapists, just desperate, shy pretenders, but they had taken something from her, something precious and vital, and in the emptiness of their passage her heart had filled with shame.

She ran to the sea seeking release.

She ran in shame to the sea and found Paul Goodwin, and her soul's ease.

________________________________

By August most Germans left the area as the American Fifth Army prepared to leap from Sicily to the Italian mainland. Besides, it was no longer safe for them on the little peninsula, and with the looming invasion troops could not be spared to search the hills for the partisans. By September, far off in the distance, far to the south, far beyond what villagers in Portofino could see, the drumbeat of distant cannon filled the earth with blood and more blood, cities were cast aglow not from lights but from fires reigned down upon them by rampaging hordes of American bombers. Soon the sky all around southern Italy shook from distant thunder by day, nights were dominated by hell-spawned fire, and Paul Goodwin looked wistfully to the sky for signs of the advancing columns of destruction, for he knew wherein his destiny lay.

He loved her, but she could never be his.

The sky was calling, always calling.

He would leave soon. And he would never return.

__________________________________

Most wars end, some are destined to play out through the ages as never ending conflict fuels ever-widening disparity, and perhaps the Second World War falls into this latter category, for while the war ended in magnanimous glory for some, for others, their stained world withered away on the parched edges of fleeting prosperity. For still other souls, destiny is held in abeyance, and they must wait.

For Maria Theresa, her war ended when the American Fifth Army drove northward toward Genoa in the final weeks of the European war, but Paul Goodwin had disappeared months before when an advance group of American Pathfinders swept through the area. One day he had been an integral part of all their lives, and the next day -- he was gone.

Two months after their first joining she miscarried, but she kept this knowledge from everyone. Whatever it was that had been growing inside of her, this being was in a moment of contractive release gone, and with it some part of Goodwin she had longed to hold on to forever. Or had it been a part of Goodwin? Could it have grown from the wanton seeds planted by two German boys? Had some purpose been violated that night? Had destiny come for them too late?

Vico drifted from her life for a while, but always remained nearby, just out of sight, as if checking on her, keeping her safe. She met another man and married him, and in time she resumed nursing, even once thought of trying to go to medical school. But time slipped by quietly, gently, and for one who had lived with two hearts of war-ravaged love beating so savagely under her breast, she gave in to the vagaries of time and fell into the comfortable hands of a simpler life.

She gave birth to a daughter one hot July night, and very nearly died from blood loss, but the little girl's presence in her life renewed her sense of purpose. She had to admit to herself even then that she missed Paul Goodwin, that she thought of him, dreamt of him, longed for him. She longed to feel him again, feel his hands on her face, his mouth on hers. She walked from time to time, on her Passeggiata, through the village and out to the cape. She looked out over the cobalt water, longing to feel him again, there, at the water's edge.

She longed to see -- them -- as well, but she never saw anything even remotely of interest after he left. It was as if her life had been left out to wither in the sun. She wondered when the winds would gather and carry the cold dust of her life away.

But other winds were gathering.

And headed her way.

End Part VI